Ivanka Trump visits 'war torn' Chicago Wednesday, for campaign cash

CHICAGO — Donald Trump may rail against Chicago violence every chance he gets, but that won’t stop his daughter Ivanka from arriving in the Windy City on Wednesday to pick up campaign cash.

Ivanka Trump will headline a cocktail reception in Chicago Wednesday evening in addition to a morning coffee in Quincy and a 12:30 p.m. luncheon in Peoria, event organizers told POLITICO Illinois.

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On the same day, Donald Trump will attend a Bolingbrook luncheon that was twice postponed.

All told, Trump supporters are hoping to raise some $2 million for the Trump campaign from the combined four stops in Illinois. Trump plans to travel to Wisconsin after his event here.

“You've got a lot of people supporting him in Illinois,” said Ron Gidwitz, who heads Trump’s Illinois fundraising. “People are really optimistic.”

Gidwitz declined to disclose the location of Ivanka Trump’s Chicago event but said she and her father were not expected to appear together at any of the events.

The visit though comes on the heels of comments her father made Monday night in his first TV debate against Hillary Clinton.

“In Chicago, they’ve had thousands of shootings, thousands since Jan. 1. Thousands of shootings. And I say, where is this? Is this is a war-torn country? What are we doing?” Trump said at the debate.

He called for “law and order” and urged for the implementation of stop-and-frisk in Chicago.

“When you have 4,000 people killed in Chicago by guns from the beginning of the presidency of Barack Obama — his home town — you have to have stop-and-frisk," Trump said. "You need more police. You need a better community relation … It’s terrible, I have property there, it’s terrible what’s happening in Chicago.”

Trump called for implementing stop-and-frisk in Chicago to curb the level of violence, saying that the practice -- ruled unconstitutional -- led to a precipitous decline in homicides in New York.

But POLITICO New York reported last week that Trump was wrong on that claim, citing statistics showing that when stop-and-frisk decreased 97 percent from 2011 to 2014, homicides and the percentage of shootings also dropped.

Trump himself will attend a fundraiser about 35 minutes outside of the city, where he’s expected to be greeted by protesters who have tried to pressure Mayor Roger Claar to cancel the event.

But Gidwitz predicted about 400 supporters would attend the Bolingbrook event.

“Republicans here are energized,” Gidwitz said.

The energy, combined with an investment in local races from Illinois Republican Party, led by Gov. Bruce Rauner, could boost Republicans across the ticket, Gidwitz said.